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they were right btw. you have to dig yourself out of your grave over and over again

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Ivan Pokidyshev Silence, 2023 Oil on canvas.

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from scrapbook by Hilda Doolittle, a.k.a. H.D.

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kitten I’ll be honest the finality of everything in this world haunts daddy like a second shadow

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Joan Baez photographed by David Redfern.

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—mothers

ijeoma umebinyuo // hyatt moore // class of 2013 by mitski // i, tonya (2017) // ? // gustav klimt // ? // lady bird (2017) // i remain in darkness by annie ernaux

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The Ultimate Dark Academia Book Recommendation Guide Ever

The title of this post is clickbait. I, unfortunately, have not read every book ever. Not all of these books are particularly “dark” either. However, these are my recommendations for your dark academia fix. The quality of each of these books varies. I have limited this list to books that are directly linked to the world of academia and/or which have a vaguely academic setting.

Dark Academia staples:

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

Dead Poets Society by Nancy H. Kleinbaum

Vita Nostra by Maryna Dyachenko

Dark academia litfic or contemporary:

Bunny by Mona Awad

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

White Ivy by Susie Yang

The Cloisters by Katy Hays

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates

Attribution by Linda Moore

Dark academia thrillers or horror:

In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

Ghosts of Harvard by Francesca Serritella

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

The It Girl by Ruth Ware

Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian

Dark academia fantasy/sci-fi:

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

The Betrayals by Bridget Collins

Dark academia romance:

Gothikana by RuNyx

Alone With You in the Ether by Olivie Blake

Dark academia YA or MG:

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

Crave by Tracy Wolff

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

Dark academia miscellaneous:

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou

Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia A. McKillip

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William Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

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- Andre Dubus - Broken Vessels: Essays

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Controversial but I wanna be a mother

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what are ur fave poems of all-time?

hi 💌 here are some:

“Hanging Fire” by Audre Lorde

“Tired” by Langston Hughes

“Having a Coke with You” by Frank O'Hara

“Love After Love” by Derek Walcott

“Mayakovsky” by Frank O'Hara

“i like my body when it is with your” by E. E. Cummings

“New Year's Eve Prayer” by Jeff Buckley

“Rain” by Roberto Bolaño

“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver

“Spring Torrents” by Sara Teasdale

“Tulips” by Sylvia Plath 

“A great Hope fell” by Emily Dickinson

“Poem” by Langston Hughes

“Sometimes I Pretend” by Naomi Shihab Nye

“What Was Once the Largest Shopping Center in Northern Ohio Was Built Where There Had Been a Pond I Used to Visit Every Summer Afternoon” by Mary Oliver

“Summer Morning” by Mary Oliver

“You Are Tired (I Think)” by E. E. Cummings

“Sifter” by Naomi Shihab Nye

“Emergency Management” by Camille Rankine

“Thanksgiving 2006” by Ocean Vuong

“Litany” by Langston Hughes

“Suicide in the Trenches” by Siegfried Sassoon

“I heard a Fly buzz - when I died” by Emily Dickinson

“Warning” by Jenny Joseph

“[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]” by E. E. Cummings

“Love Sorrow” by Mary Oliver

“Conversations About Home (at the Deportation Centre)” by Warsan Shire

“Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out” by Richard Siken

“Limited but Fertile Possibilities Are Offered by This Brochure” by Marge Piercy

“The Thing Is” by Ellen Bass

“Mad Girl's Love Song” by  Sylvia Plath

“The Century’s Decline” by Wislawa Szymborska

“A Primer For The Small Weird Loves” by Richard Siken

“Unpainted Door” by Louise Glück

“Spring has come back again” by Rainer Maria Rilke

“Homesickness” by Marina Tsvetaeva

“Don't Hesitate” by Mary Oliver

“There's a certain Slant of light” by Emily Dickinson

“Poem for Haruko” by June Jordan

“To Be Human Is to Sing Your Own Song” by Mary Oliver

“Toward a City That Sings” by June Jordan

“Edward the Confessor” by Eileen Myles (under the cut because I couldn't find it online)

Edward the Confessor by Eileen Myles

I have a confession to make I wish there were some role in society I could fulfill I could be a confessor I have a confession to make I have this way when I step into the bakery on 2nd Ave. of wanting to be the only really nice person in the store so the harried sales woman with several toned hair will like me. I do this in all kinds of stores, coffee shops xerox shops, everywhere I go. And invariably I leave my keys, xeroxing, my coffee from the last place I am being so nice. I try so hard to make a great impression on these neutral strangers right down to the perfect warm smile I get entirely lost and stagger back out onto the street, bereft of something major. It’s really leaning too hard on the everyday. My mother was the kind of woman who dragging us into stores always seemed to charm the pants off the cashier. She was such a great person, so human though at home she was such a bitch, I mean really distant. I imitate her and I don’t do it well. She didn’t leave her wallet or us in a store. I’m just a pale imitation it is simply not my style to open the hearts of strangers to my true personhood. I hope you accept this tiny confession of what I am currently going through. And if you are experiencing something of a similar nature tell someone, not me, but tell someone. It’s the new human program to be in. It would be nice for at least these final moments if we could sigh with the relief of being in the same program with all the other humans whispering in school. I can’t quite locate the terror, but I am trying to be my mother or Edward the Confessor smiling down on you with up-praying hands. I am looking down at the tips of my boots as I step across the balcony of the church excited to be allowed to say these things. Outside my church is a relationship. On 11th street this guy and this woman are selling the woman so they can get more dope. All their things are there, rags and loaves of bread and make-up. And there was— this was incredible. Two men lying by the door of the church giving each other blow-jobs. They were sort of street guys, one black one white. I said hey you can’t do that here. They jumped up, one spit come out of his mouth. If you don’t get out of here I’ll call the cops. Don’t call the cops we’ll go, we’ll leave. That was a shock. That was more than I expected to see in a day. Something about seeing the guy spit come out of his mouth. He didn’t have to do that. I guess I scared him. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was scared too.

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Fyodor Dostoevsky, Poor Folk (translated by C. J. Hogarth)

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Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher (translated by Joachim Neugroschel)